"Nuclear Energy Is the Energy of a Bright Future": Haunting Photos from Fukushima's Exclusion Zone10/15/2015
"Nuclear Energy is the Energy of a Bright Future". Street sign in Futaba, Fukushima, Japan. All photos in this article by Arkadiusz Podniesinski, www. podniesinski.pl "Nuclear Energy is the Energy of a Bright Future". During the heyday of the Fukushima nuclear power plants, this street sign may have made sense. But after the devastating nuclear accident that rendered the area virtually uninhabitable, the irony of the sign could not be more palpable, or more cruel.
Located on a strip of coastline in Japan's Fukushima prefecture, roughly 150 miles north of Tokyo, the two nuclear power plants once stood as shining pillars of modernity and prosperity amid their more traditional, rural surroundings. The plants were located near the ocean to have access to ample supplies of water for cooling purposes - a common practice for nuclear power plants worldwide. But the plants' costal location would prove to be their achilles heel. In 2011, a devastating earthquake and the tsunami that followed damaged the plants and unleashed destructive and potentially deadly nuclear radiation on many of the nearby towns. In response, the Japanese government created an "exclusionary zone" around many of the cities, restricting locals' access to the cities and in some cases prohibiting it entirely. The exclusionary zone has created a virtual limbo for many of the area's residents. Though many still maintain property rights within the area, they can't make use of their property. And given the alarmingly elevated levels of radiation that remain, many would prefer not to. Last month, Polish photographer Arkadiusz Podniesinski, known for his numerous photo essays of nuclear destruction in the Russian city of Chernobyl, was granted access to the exclusionary zone. He documented his experience in photos and in words, which were picked up by other websites and quickly went viral. We're going to run some of the photos here, the full set is definitely worth checking out. Podniesinski says that, after entering the zone, the first thing he was struck by were the rows and rows of trash bags filled with nuclear contaminated dirt. An aerial photo reveals these sacks filling up farm fields. In general, the area remains very rural; even before the nuclear plants' promise of a bright future was tragically broken back in 2011, many in the area preferred to stick to their agrarian roots. And some continued to stick to those roots even after the exclusionary zone was put in place. On his trip, Podniesinski met with Naoto Matsumura, a local farmer who still sneaks back in to care for cows and ostriches left stranded in the area. Unfortunately, Matsumura's efforts aren't enough; some abandoned cows in the area are becoming sick from the radiation, developing white spots on their coats. |
The Pantera Language Studio BlogUpdates on our language services, and any and/or all of our thoughts on funny, weird, or wild language related stories. Come join the fun! Archives
December 2016
Categories
All
|